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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Half way done and it feels very, VERY strange

I have hit my 9 month mark today. I am officially at my halfway point of my mission. I must admit, it feels very, VERY strange. I still feel as if I am a new missionary but then again, I look at the young, brand new missionaries and realize that I am not. Time is literally going faster than I can imagine but I still know that there is time ahead of me. Last month, when I hit my 8 month mark, I felt a little panicked with the thought of the lurking 9 month mark. 3 months ago, I felt myself groan and think "how can I do this for another year? It is hard." When I woke up this morning, my thoughts were "CRAP. I need to work HARDER!" I don't want this to end. I LOVE my mission so much. Everything that I do. The ups and downs, highs and lows, happiness and disappointment. I love being a representative of the Lord.

Friday night we had a Talent and Taco Night for a ward activity. There was a WONDERFUL show of non members, invited by our fantastic members.

The guests were a little hesitant to speak with us at first but they opened up by the end of the activity. Why? Sorella Andromidas and I did one of the FUNNIEST skits of my LIFE.

(The white on my face was yogurt) I believe one of the members was going to put it up on facebook. Sorella Andromidas was my arms while I sang to "My Prayer" by Celine Dion. Oh it was a riot.

This week, our Presidente gave us the challenge to have 21 lessons. I told Sorella Andromidas (whom I love soooo much) that it will not be too difficult. I have done it MANY times before. We needed to accomplish this within Saturday to Saturday. Unfortunately, because people have agency and we have adversity, almost ALL of our planned lessons fell through Saturday and Sunday. We had planned 10 for both days and were able to do 5, grazie a Dio. We saw SOOOOO many beautiful blessings from this experience. On Sunday night, I was very frustrated and a little discouraged from our Baptismal Date who has cancelled on us SOOOO many times. I had called him, chastised him because it was not fair to us, felt like repenting afterwards, and then we left to stop by and visit him. As we were waiting, we said a prayer, asking for patience and guidance. About 2 minutes later, a young man named Marco walked by and we ended up teaching him. Nothing came out of it but it was so beautiful to help someone else come closer to Christ. By the time we saw R, we were calm and loving again. We ended the night by going to L and A's home. They fed us and we enjoyed the evening sharing our favorite scriptures. :)

Our miracle followed us home from the specialized conference that we had yesterday with Anziano Teixeira, in FLORENCE!
It addressed exactly what I needed to hear to improve myself as a missionary and servant of the Lord. I have reached my half way mark and have felt that I needed to work a little harder and a little more but I couldn't find the motivation to do such. This was answered yesterday. When we got home last night, we made the extra effort to knock doors in between our appointments and to stop more people. We now have several potential lessons set up for tonight and tomorrow. The bigger blessing is that we feel much more satisfied and happy with ourselves as we work for our Lord.

The gospel is so beautiful and the future is so bright. I was reading in Mosiah 5 this morning and felt a scripture echo the thoughts of my heart.

It says in verse 4
And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy.

I absolutely LOVE this. It is by FAITH that we can come to the knowledge that the words our prophets have said are TRUE. It is also by faith that we can still rejoice and have JOY in this world. I am so happy to be a missionary and to have this chance to serve the Lord. I have SO much joy.